A roadmap to hadronic supercriticalities: a comprehensive study of the parameter space for high-energy astrophysical sources

Abstract

Hadronic supercriticalities are radiative instabilities that appear when large amounts of energy are stored in relativistic protons. When the proton energy density exceeds some critical value, a runaway process is initiated resulting in the explosive transfer of the proton energy into electron-positron pairs and radiation. The runaway also leads to an increase of the radiative efficiency, namely the ratio of the photon luminosity to the injected proton luminosity. We perform a comprehensive study of the parameter space by investigating the onset of hadronic supercriticalities for a wide range of source parameters (i.e., magnetic field strengths of 1 G$-100$ kG and radii of $10^{11}$ cm$-10^{16}$ cm) and maximum proton Lorentz factors ($10^3-10^9$). We show that supercriticalities are possible for the whole range of source parameters related to compact astrophysical sources, like gamma-rays bursts, cores and jets of active galactic nuclei. We also provide an in-depth look at the physical mechanisms of hadronic supercriticalities and show that magnetized relativistic plasmas are excellent examples of non-linear dynamical systems in high-energy astrophysics.

arXiv comment17 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (35)

• Evidence for High-Energy Extraterrestrial Neutrinos at the IceCube Detector
• Multi-messenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A
• Neutrino emission from the direction of the blazar TXS 0506+056 prior to the IceCube-170922A alert
• A Proton Synchrotron Blazar Model for Flaring in Markarian~501
• Fast variability of TeV gamma-rays from the radio galaxy M 87
• A Multimessenger Picture of the Flaring Blazar TXS 0506+056: implications for High-Energy Neutrino Emission and Cosmic Ray Acceleration
• Multiwavelength Evidence for Quasi-periodic Modulation in the Gamma-ray Blazar PG 1553+113
• A hadronic origin for ultra-high-frequency-peaked BL Lac objects
• Hadronic gamma-ray emission from windy microquasars
• Lepto-hadronic single-zone models for the electromagnetic and neutrino emission of TXS 0506+056
• Photohadronic origin of $\gamma$-ray BL Lac emission: implications for IceCube neutrinos
• Neutrino Fluxes from Active Galaxies: a Model-Independent Analysis
• High Energy Gamma Rays from Ultrahigh Energy Cosmic Rays in Gamma Ray Bursts
• The time-dependent one-zone hadronic model - First principles
• Prompt high-energy neutrinos from gamma-ray bursts in photospheric and synchrotron self-Compton scenarios
• Hadronic high-energy gamma-ray emission from the microquasar LS I $+61303$
• Multi-Epoch Modeling of TXS 0506+056 and Implications for Long-Term High-Energy Neutrino Emission
• The brightest gamma-ray flares of blazars
• A two-zone model for blazar emission: implications for TXS 0506+056 and the neutrino event IceCube-170922A
• Prompt GeV-TeV Emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts Due to High-Energy Protons, Muons and Electron-Positron Pairs
• High energy neutrino flux from individual blazar flares
• High-mass microquasars and low-latitude gamma-ray sources
• Spectral and temporal signatures of ultrarelativistic protons in compact sources
• Quasi-periodic behaviour in the optical and γ-ray light curves of blazars 3C 66A and B2 1633+38
• Implications of a PeV neutrino spectral cutoff in GRB models
• Neutrino Echoes from Multimessenger Transient Sources
• Multi-messenger tests of cosmic-ray acceleration in radiatively inefficient accretion flows
• MAGIC observations of the giant radio galaxy M87 in a low-emission state between 2005 and 2007
• Temporal signatures of leptohadronic feedback mechanisms in compact sources
• The "Supercritical Pile" Model for GRB: Getting the nu F_{nu} peak at 1 MeV
• Implications of automatic photon quenching on compact gamma-ray sources
• Automatic quenching of high energy gamma-ray sources by synchrotron photons
• Hadronic supercriticality as a trigger for GRB emission
• Patterns of variability in supercritical hadronic systems
• Spontaneously quenched gamma-ray spectra from compact sources

Cited by in corpus (7)

• A study of natural frequencies in a dynamic corona-disk system
• Neutrino signal dependence on gamma-ray burst emission mechanism
• LeHaMoC: a versatile time-dependent lepto-hadronic modeling code for high-energy astrophysical sources
• A marginally fast-cooling proton-synchrotron model for prompt GRBs
• Hadronic X-ray Flares from Blazars
• A closer look at the electromagnetic signatures of Bethe-Heitler pair production process in blazars
• Hadronic supercriticality in spherically expanding sources: application to GRB prompt emission